I was on my way to Manhattan from Brooklyn on the subway. I was riding the N train, which is notorious for making way too many stops in downtown Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. It was a Saturday night and the train was semi-crowded with partygoers on their way to the city. As the train was snaking its way through downtown Manhattan this woman got on. She was quite striking, but this was hard to make out because she was sobbing uncontrollably. A hush fell over the train as people turned to examine the woman. She took a seat right across from me. The train continued to creep through lower Manhattan with the woman sobbing. The mood on the train was different though. The intoxicated people on the train were now completely silent. Everyone was wondering about the woman. After a few minutes with no one attempting to do anything, I got up and sat next to her. I had no idea what to say to the woman, so I asked her if everything was all right. Just as the last syllables were escaping my mouth she turned and threw her arms around me. She started crying even harder into my shoulder. I hugged her back. I told her that everything was going to be fine. I didn’t know that this was true, but an ex-girlfriend of mine always told me that if a woman is crying, they want to be told that everything is going to work out, even if it isn’t.
A friend of mine used to work in a mental asylum. It was in the middle of the woods in the East German countryside. It had to be there because the people in the asylum were really fucking crazy. There was this one guy, Mr. Schmidt, who had to be strapped to his bed the whole day. The only time he wasn’t strapped down was when my friend was washing him. He had to do this every day. My friend worked there for three months and saw this guy every day. He always said hello and spoke to him but the guy never answered back. He never said a single word. Then one day my friend went in to wash Mr. Schmidt and he saw him sitting up in bed, looking out the window, whistling. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said. He then asked him to sit down and he started explaining all about himself. What he was like as a kid, the first girl he slept with, the affair he’d had, how he’d killed a guy in the war. It was his whole life story. When he finished, my friend ran off to tell the nurses. When they heard what Mr. Schmidt was doing, the nurses screamed for a doctor. My friend was totally confused. The nurses said Mr. Schmidt was about to die. When some guys are mentally fucked-up, they shut themselves off from the rest of the world. Then, just before they’re about to die, their bodies release endorphins to help with the pain. The thing is, these hormones also shake the guys out of the little mental room they’ve been living in for the past 30 years. When they get back into the real world, they want to explain all the stuff they never had a chance to before. The nurses and doctors all rushed down the corridor to Mr. Schmidt’s room. They found him lying dead on his bed. MORGIN VUSKOP I would only like to say: The winner is… WINNER: DEATH RATTLES Morgin Vuskop: “Thank you. Thank you everybody. I’m glad you liked my story. I have told that story about 200 times in my life and I hope I never have to tell it again. I will just hand them this issue of the magazine and say ‘Feel free to ask any questions.’ I hope you all learned something about death from this or at least endorphins and I’d like to thank the judges for acknowledging that my story teaches people.”BOBBYI’m from Puebla, Mexico. I went to school until I was 12, then started working when I was 13. What was your first job? My family and my uncles do construction, so I was working on houses. How’d do you end up in the states? I took a plane from Mexico City to Tijuana, then crossed the border with a few people. We walked for a few hours and ended up in L.A. the same day. I was there for about three days, then I flew to New York. I just stayed with friends and family wherever I went. What kind of work did you do when you got to New York? When I first got here I was working on a Pepsi truck. I’d load them then do the deliveries to the supermarkets and stores. How do you get along with Americans? I used to get a hard time from black and Puerto Rican people in my neighborhood, but now everything’s fine. I like to work with Americans though. They’re good people. I don’t work with Spanish people anymore. No way. Why not? The Spanish people are always trying to get you to work harder, and it’s like the more work you do, the more work they want you to do.